


this garden bloomed, full of thorns

by 909 (staticmotion)



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: A very small bit of, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Blood, Depression, Emotional Baggage, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Language of Flowers, Stray Kids love each other, Unnamed Deceased Character, emotional breakdown, very small
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-28 21:53:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17190974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staticmotion/pseuds/909
Summary: Grief and Felix are old friends, and Felix thinks a visit is overdue.





	this garden bloomed, full of thorns

**Author's Note:**

> I was listening to The Truth Untold, started crying, wrote this and cried some more while doing so. Note that the “hyung” mentioned is not specified. This is intentional. 
> 
> Enjoy.

The air smells the same way it did the first time Felix visited. Wet earth and the fragrant scent of wildflowers whisked along by the spring breeze up onto the hill as he hikes to the top. He understands why this place had been the one chosen, with mountains climbing into the sky not far away and skies so vast and clear they make him dizzy. It’s everything that was asked for and more before they were left behind.

Felix knows he would’ve wanted it, he knows, but the space around him presses down until he’s struggling for air. 

He stops. 

He breathes deep. One, two, three, four, five. 

He walks over the crest of the hill.

“Hey, hyung,” he says softly, hand automatically clenching upon the small bouquet of white roses tied together with a blue ribbon. His words ring loud in the still air, the silence otherwise only broken by birdcalls and the rustling of wind through trees. “I figured it was past time I came to see you again. The others don’t know I’m here, but I sort of wanted it that way.”

He settles down onto the grass in front of the marble statue, stone blooms of heather sprouting from the circular base. His fingers run over the ridges along the bottom, forming letters that read ‘Always by your side.’ He can’t help the way his nose grows hot and his throat goes tight, but he trudges on, determined to say what he came to say.

“I still water your plants like you asked me to,” he chuckles, smiling weakly. He puts the flowers down before his anxious hands ruin the stems. “I didn’t expect that they’d live long under my awful care, but somehow they have. To be honest I think Seungmin has been taking care of them when he thinks I’m not in the dorm, which I appreciate even if it makes me feel sort of dumb.”

He pauses, collecting his thoughts. “Jeongin turned twenty-one last month. It was a little bit weird, but he’s acting more like my hyung than my dongsaeng every day so I’m getting used to the changes. He’ll always be our baby, though. That’ll never change.”

Felix doesn’t realize he’s waiting for a response until a sparrow’s call startles him out of his trance. He puts his hand palm-down to the earth in front of the statue, looking down as if his touch would be enough to elicit a reply. Nothing happens. He slumps, eyes stinging.

“It’s so hard to act like I’m fine,” he whispers. His nails bite into his palms hard enough to break the skin, vision blurring with tears. “They seem to expect that a few years will change things, that some time and a new album and more fans will make the pain easier to deal with. It doesn’t.”

The bottoms of his hands burn as blood seeps from the shallow cuts his nails made. His cheeks begin to prickle as tears slide down. “I want to be strong for the others, and I am most of the time. They think I’m the best one of us when it comes to grieving, but I still go to sleep expecting to hear the door open at five in the morning and I still make an extra cup of coffee for you before I remember and I still go to your room when I need advice but you’re never there and I can’t fucking breathe half the time, hyung.”

And he can’t breathe now, air wheezing out from between his gritted teeth. The earth feels like it’s spinning too fast and Felix curls in on himself, rocking back and forth and chanting, “I miss you, I miss you, I miss you,” like an incantation. 

He tilts too much to one side and lets himself fall to the ground, gasping for air. His eyes are shut and tears stream over the bridge of his nose, wetting the ground beneath his head. 

“Please, please,” he sobs, “Just tell me how it’ll be okay without you here, tell me how it’s worth it.”

No soft voice comes. No familiarly calloused hands grasp his shoulder. No breath warms his cheek. The air is empty but for his cries, the birds frightened away by his misery and the wind quiet for once in the two hours it had taken him to make it to this place. His breath comes in sharp intakes, too fast and too shallow to stop the black spots from dancing in front of his eyes.

He sees it when he opens them again. Red, behind the statue. Red that he knows wasn’t there when they first came to this place.

His hair falls into his face as he jolts up, but he’s too focused on the bright color to take much notice. His vision goes in and out from vertigo as he drags himself forward along the ground, legs too weak to carry him.

When he finally makes it around the statue, the air he regained escapes from his chest even as his heart strengthens in its rhythm. He lets out a broken sound as he rubs the red petals of a rose between his fingers. American Beauty. His favorite.

Maybe it’s a coincidence. Flowers blooming in a forest isn’t an uncommon occurrence. 

But the bush leans against the heather statue like it belongs with it, blooming brilliantly even in the temperamental weather of March, and Felix can’t help but feel like it’s there for him. He feels a watery smile growing on his face, and he begins to make a sound that is half-laugh, half-cry. 

When Felix leaves an hour later, he has a crimson blossom in his palm. His heart beats unbroken for the first time in two years.


End file.
